Dame Barbara Hepworth DBE

Private Collection, California (acquired in September 1975. Sold: Sotheby’s, New York, 14th May, 1992, lot 301)
Philip & Muriel Berman, Allentown (purchased at the above sale. Sold: Sotheby’s, New York, 4th November 2004, lot 16)
Purchased at the above sale by the present owner

New York, Marlborough Gallery, Barbara Hepworth ‘Conversations’, 1974, no. 1

The Family of Man - Nine Bronzes and Recent Carvings (exhibition catalogue), Marlborough Fine Arts, Ltd., London, 1970, no. 1, illustration of another cast n.n.
Barbara Hepworth, Late Works (exhibition catalogue), Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh, Edinburgh, 1976, illustration of another cast nos. 11 & 11A
Barbara Hepworth, A Retrospective (exhibition catalogue), Tate Gallery, Liverpool; Yale Center for British Art, New Haven & Art Gallery of Ontario, Toronto, 1994-95, illustration of the complete set
A. M. Hammacher, Barbara Hepworth, London, 1998, illustration of the complete set pp. 198-9
Penelope Curtis, Barbara Hepworth, London, 2012, illustration of another cast n.p.

Hepworth completed this monumental figure in 1970, only five years before her death. It belongs to a group of 9 sculptures collectively known as The Family of Man, alternatively called Nine Figures on a Hill. These impressive works were assigned individual titles by Hepworth, such as Ancestor, Bride and Ultimate Form, all of which evoke a timeless, totemic quality. As the artist herself admitted, there is a certain poignancy about these late works, as they addressed topics of special significance to her during the last years of her life. According to Alan G. Wilkinson, Hepworth's Family of Man series established her as a uniquely interpretive sculptor of the upright, standing figure.  He explains that ‘In The Family of Man [...], Hepworth presents us with a twentieth-century recreation of the prehistoric menhirs, quoits, and stone circles that had been a constant source of inspiration since she moved to Cornwall in 1939’ (Alan G. Wilkinson, Barbara Hepworth, Sculptures from the Estate (exhibition catalogue), Wildenstein Gallery, New York, 1996, p. 31).

Essentially abstract in form, The Family of Man: Figure 1, Ancestor 1 is nonetheless endowed with a human quality. The year that she created the present work, Hepworth wrote about the meaning that she assigned many of her sculptures: ‘Working in the abstract way seems to realize one’s personality and sharpen the perceptions so that in the observation of humanity or landscape it is the wholeness of inner intention which moves one so profoundly. The components fall into place and one is no longer aware of the detail except as the necessary significance of wholeness and unity... a rhythm of form which has its roots in earth but reaches outwards towards the unknown experiences of the future. The thought underlying this form is, for me, the delicate balance the spirit of man maintains between his knowledge and the laws of the universe’ (Barbara Hepworth, Barbara Hepworth, A Pictorial Autobiography, Wiltshire, 1970, p. 93).

The basic form for each of the 9 figures from the group was taken from the stacked marble pieces Hepworth had produced earlier in her career. Discussing the group Penelope Curtis wrote: ‘The figures are semi-mechanistic, semi-animate, slightly turned, as if responsive. They remind one of American Indian carvings (and not only in their titles), of Mexican terracottas, and of the later sculpture of Max Ernst, of Germaine Richier’s Chessboard or Isamu Noguchi’s Family’ (P. Curtis, op. cit., p. 59). This rich context provides an insight into Hepworth own influences, as well as the profound impact she has had on the art of her contemporaries and subsequent generations of artists.

All the other casts of the model are on display to the public. There are two casts which complete the two groups of The Family of Man which are on view at the Yorkshire Sculpture Park and The Donald M. Kendall Sculpture Garden at PepsiCo, Purchase, New York. A cast of Figure 1, Ancestor 1 is held by the Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge, another is at Birmingham University, and the last cast the edition is at the L'Esplanade Laurier Building in Ottawa.

Fig. 1, Dame Barbara Hepworth, The Family of Man, 1970, bronze, The Yorkshire Sculpture Park, West Bretton